Coffee With The Lord

So I’ve got some friends whose lives were a real mess before they met Jesus, turned from their sinful past, and trusted Him to “save” them (i.e. to transform their lives)… Alcoholics, drug pushers and addicts, adulterers, homosexuals, murderers, thieves, spouse and child abusers… I could go on…

What changed their lives?  Turning from their sin and trusting Jesus Christ to transform their lives… The power of the “gospel” (The message of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for their sin, His burial, His resurrection (to give them new life), and His ascension back into heaven as their Divine, heavenly advocate!  A message that many mock and ridicule as “foolish” – but a message that has a wonderful track record of “deliverance” and transformed lives!

Apostle Paul wasn’t ashamed of it… neither am I – nor are those who have experienced the “power of the Gospel!”  Apostle Paul declared: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes!” (Romans 1:16)

To those in Corinth, a city known its sin and debauchery, Paul expressed it this way (I read it just this morning during my time of “coffee with the Lord): “For the word [i.e. the message] of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God! … Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?   For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through its wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.  For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jew and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called… Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men!” (1 Corinthians 1:18-25 ESV)

Transformed lives through Jesus Christ – embracing the message that He died for our sin, was buried, and rose from the dead to impart transformation and eternal life to those who believe on Him!  Hey, it works when social programs, therapies, reform programs and prisons fail!  The message of the gospel – the power of the cross – trumps the wisdom of this world!  I’m not ashamed!… I can give you the names of lives transformed…

I always find it helpful to “pray Scripture” – to make the very words of the Bible my prayers to God!

The Psalmist was frustrated with the wicked – their behavior and sinful lives grieved him deeply.  He didn’t know what to do about it except pray!  Here’s his prayer… I made it mine today!  His words became my prayer words on this “Lord’s Day”…

“Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my groaning!  Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to You do I pray!  O Lord, in the morning hear my voice!  In the morning I prepare a sacrifice for You and watch…

“I, through the abundance of Your steadfast love, will enter Your house. I will bow down … in the fear [the “reverence”] of You.  Lead me, O Lord, in Your righteousness! … Make Your way straight before me! …

“Let all who take refuge in You rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread Your protection over them, that those who love Your name may exult in You!  For You bless the righteous, O Lord!  You cover them with favor as with a shield!”

(Adapted from Psalm 5 for personal prayer)

There are mistakes people make in evaluating others – and then there are BIG mistakes!  Like looking at the “snotty nosed kid” down the block on a skateboard, terrorizing the neighborhood – writing him off – only to discover later he has become your banker (and you need a loan)! Or the teacher who has what they think is an “air head” of a student in elementary or high school only to pick up the newspaper and discover they have won a “Nobel Peace Prize” in physics.  Or the campus “trouble maker” that drove you “nuts” that becomes a governor or even president.  We write people off too easily and often evaluate them wrongly!

Well that happened with Jesus too – and take it from me (and what the Bible teaches)… that is a BIG mistake – a life-threatening mistake – an “eternal life-threatening” mistake…

So Jesus because of His teaching and miracle-working activity begins to “make a name for Himself”… and goes “home” to Nazareth for a visit… (and here the story begins right out of the Bible…)  

“And coming to His hometown He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?  Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?  And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’  AND THEY TOOK OFFENSE AT HIM! But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.’  AND HE DID NOT DO MANY MIGHTY WORKS THERE, BECAUSE OF THEIR UNBELIEF!”  (From Matthew 13:54–58 ESV)

Now THAT is a bad case of evaluation!  Thinking that Jesus Christ – Lord of all, Savior of the world, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Almighty God in human flesh, if you please God incarnate – is just the “kid down the street” – a mere human!  After all, what so special about Him?  Ties His shoes just like my kids… does carpentry with His dad… Look at His brothers and sisters after all – nothing special about them!  And His mother?  There are still stories going around about her and the circumstances of His birth!”

That’s a mistake in evaluation that will send people to “Hell!” – a mistake with eternal life implications (and quality of life implications)!  I mean, after all, here is what the Bible says…

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have Eternal life!” (John 3:16)

“There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved!” (Acts 4:12)

And quality of life? … Jesus speaking, “I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly!” (John 10:10)

Hey, He’s more than just that guy from Nazareth… I mean, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46)